


Cicatrix

by Hope



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-08
Updated: 2005-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-02 00:12:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For a Jayne/Simon ficathon.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Cicatrix

**Author's Note:**

> For a Jayne/Simon ficathon.

*

When Simon wakes up, the world's skewed. He's not where he ought to be; and the realisation is already there before he's even become fully aware, it's not something he has to remind himself of, this time.

First he feels numb, and then when he moves, it hurts. River's still blurry beside him no matter how many times he blinks his eyes. "Found you," she says.

She's smiling. The room is white, blocked out by empty beds, and it hurts more when he moves again, tries to haul himself up into a sitting position. It's harder than he thought. River just keeps on smiling, and Simon feels a little sick. He doesn't remember being put under, but remembers a lot of other things. Mostly the hurt of it, and River, and silence. He doesn't know where he is.

"Where..?" he says, and his throat hurts, and he doesn't even have to finish the question, though it takes a while to interpret her answer; the sound all tangled up in the clear planes of her voice as it slides, sharp-edged into his hearing.

"They're fine. Better than you. You slept through _everything_." She shifts a little, straightening her arms out in front of her, pressing her wrists together between her knees where she sits, leaning forward a little toward the bed. It's so quiet, and her voice is so clear. "All better."

The facility's mostly deserted; River disappears again and it isn't long after that that Kaylee turns up, smiling but looking mostly tired, and she squeezes his fingers before sitting on a nearby bed, swinging her legs and watching on as Simon engages in a wary exchange with a uniformed doctor. He knows himself that he shouldn't leave the bed yet, but he concedes the use of a crutch to ease the pressure on the wound some; the nurse doesn't seem to want to dare to tell him otherwise, not after watching on as he changed the dressing himself.

Kaylee smiles her thanks to the med staff before taking his free arm, but Simon finds he can't even bear to look at them. Even when they're left alone, the air against his skin scrapes as if it's raw, the press of the crutch hurts under his arm, the floor against the soles of his feet. Kaylee's grip on his forearm is loose, warm, like hot wax. It's bright outside and he squints, drops his head, then touches her neck where a row of newly-healed pink skin marks where the darts went in. She ducks her chin, and he withdraws his hand; her hair swings across where it was, masking her face as she looks ahead of her. "We're goin' to Haven," she says. "To bury 'em there."

The sky above Haven is white, the rockets they send out into them disappearing in the glare like Zoë’s dress into the colours around them, like the smoke from Jayne’s cigar. It’s all too bright. Simon’s eyes burn, and his body feels fragile, pressed too heavily between the harsh, vast rockiness around them and the solidity of the sky.

*

It's darker inside Serenity; mostly because the Reaver fire knocked out the circuitry and the infirmary isn't covered by the backup units. Simon almost feels lost inside it; the shadows cast by the free-standing lights too dark for his eyes to penetrate; it isn't the little pocket of blue held close in the ship's belly he's used to. The floor feels thinner below his feet, as if their violent landing had scraped layers off the surface of her. Not that they're touching ground now; Serenity's resting on supports while they work on her outside as well as her inside. They aren't even in the air and Simon feels more than ever like he's about to break through the thin shell of her and fall through to the outside.

He's always made sure the infirmary's secure, though, against the ship's lurching as they enter atmo, so there's not all that much to tidy up until he opens a drawer and doesn't realise it's lined with frail, shattered glass from what had been a particularly delicate and old diagnostic implement until he puts his hand in it, not able to see that far in with the shadow cast by the lamps. The sudden sting of it draws him up sharp, at least, jerking him out of the maudlin fog that means he didn't really try and look first anyway. It makes him stand up straight, brings back awareness of the low-level itching discomfort that he knows -- from several consecutive sleepless nights, now -- builds up to a wall of ache that he can't get past, establishing itself over a day of stretching up to hold back masses of wire for River, or heaving parts from outside into the engine room, or crouching in front of the infirmary's lower cupboards.

When Kaylee lays her hand palm-flat over the bandage, he automatically pulls away. Her voice when she apologies doesn't sound like he's ever heard it before; not cheerful, or angry or apologetic. Just regretful. Her eyes are close, still a little red-rimmed and gleaming but clear, not like it was at first, when everything hurt and they pushed against each other to allow the burn of friction to draw it to a point. She moves carefully like the rest of them, like Mal, like she's been stabbed and she's not quite sure that if she steps too stridently her insides will surge outside.

He wants to undress them, put his hands in them, fix them from the inside out, a safe red in the bubble of blue, wrapped around by Serenity. When he thinks about it he can't breathe, like someone's opened a hole in his throat and all the air is rushing out, and he's drowning on what's left, the nothing, the black.

*

Jayne gets into a habit, a twitch of sorts, though it doesn't look to be something obsessive, unhealthy. He pauses every so often, straightens up from where he's hauling something, slouches a tenseness out of his posture. Angles his shoulders back, then forward, shakes his head a little. Compulsive, but compelled, too, like his body's growing back into its skin and he has to shrug the fit in more comfortable every so often. Simon watches the muscles move and thinks of their names; _Deltoid, Rhomboid; Scapula; Supraspinatus, Infraspinatus_.

The bandage is warm and dry when he winds it off his belly and wound is pink, fine-grained and soft. He tapes another dressing over it and it feels better, then, to run his hand from his ribs down to his hip, barely even feeling the difference when his fingers go from skin to gauze to skin again.

*

"Huh?" Jayne says the first time, not even looking up.

Simon's not going to rise to it, he's too tired even to scowl at the back of Jayne's head. "I need you to teach me how to shoot."

Jayne doesn't answer this time, just keeps his head bowed until he's finished slotting the parts back in then peers up at Simon, smirk pulling at the edges of his mouth.

"You do, huh?"

Simon nods, not shifting, staring right back.

"And why is it that you _need_–" the emphasis is crude, and unstable as he tries to drag it out. "–_Me_ to teach you?"

Simon glances down at the weapon in Jayne's hands, then up again, and then is surprised at the relief he feels at not having to answer that verbally, Jayne's ability to not be completely dim when it comes to picking up on subtle signals relating to violence, unlike everything else.

Jayne drops his head again, runs the soft cloth he's holding over the barrel. The movement's slow, considered, not pretending to be anything else and it makes Simon feel a little raw. He struck by a sudden surge of almost-grief for how things were, back when they all had people to pretend to be, roles to perform; back before all the masks got ripped off and everything had to be wrapped in bandages instead.

Jayne spits, the movement almost thoughtful as he licks his lips and presses them together. "You know," he says. "Ain't no use fixin' somethin' that ain't broke."

"You don't need to tell me how to fix things," and the words are quick, but the edge of sarcasm that might have been there before is conspicuous in its absence. Jayne stands up. "Aren't you going to ask me what you get in return?"

"Nope," Jayne pushes past, walking easily, shoulders broad and feet set apart. Simon follows.

*

He doesn't know what he was expecting, _tells_ himself he doesn't know what he was expecting, but his focus shifts from the brush of fabric over his belly as he lifts his arms, and then the shock of the gun kicking back into his hands, the motion and the sound sending a shock of vibration over him like another skin. But it's diaphanous, frail; and even after what feels like hours of it, Jayne's hands break through it and burn when they close fast around Simon's upper arms. Simon grips the weapon almost convulsively, hard metal warming in his grasp before Jayne's hands shift again, closing over Simon's to take the gun back, set it aside. When he shoves Simon down Simon half-expects the whole ship to rock with the force of it, but the air in Jayne's bunk around them is thick with stillness, buffering and setting everything, temporality shifting to make every moment an individual occurrence; no even flow.

Part of him is outside of it still, detached, examining and recording each movement and shape, storing facts for diagnosis. Then, when Jayne leans back for a moment to pull off his tee-shirt, Simon finds his hands have automatically moved to Jayne's shoulder, fingers moving over the pale scar, pressing hard enough to feel the texture of the skin but not the angle of muscle beneath.

And he knows scar tissue grows over and muffles sensation but Jayne still grips his hand almost painfully in Simon's hair when Simon's mouth presses against the new, toughening skin, and Jayne makes an odd noise in his throat that Simon feels more than hears, the smoothness and the heat of the skin more defined against his tongue.

"You ain't right," Jayne says gruffly, pulling at Simon's hair just a little bit but not pushing him away, shifting instead to nudge up Simon's shirt with his forearm, and then his hand's palm-flat and heavy on Simon's belly. All the sensation rushes forward to that point he's not touched for as long as he can now, and his skin's prickling all over and his body's pushing forward like there's something pressing him from behind, forcing the air out of him and he's not sure how he's able to stand it, feeling every grain and crack in Jayne's broad, dry hand against the tender skin, and then Jayne shifts again, and slides his hand further downward.

Everything's rushing out of him, then, he can't get a breath in and it feels like his chest's caving, and his body's a tough shell, leathered, pressed and malleable between the weight of Jayne's body above and the crumpled blankets at his back.

*

When Simon wakes up, the world's skewed, but things level out some when he makes himself sit up, feels behind him to identify the warm-metal shape of one of Jayne's guns. He imagines there must be an imprint of it, somewhere just to the left of his spine toward his lower back, but Jayne's been lying on his arm so his fingers are somewhat desensitized when he strokes them over the skin.

"There you are," River says when he walks into the infirmary, and she's half-blue and half-yellow and no shadow with her hands wrist-deep in the wiring coiling out of a gap in the wall, the panel covering it leaning against the wall beside her. She works for a little longer, and he switches off the backup lamps when she's done, standing back, her shoulders curled a little and dress hanging loosely. Her skin reflects the light, bright blue, and she grins, open-mouthed. Same as ever. "All better."

**Author's Note:**

> http://hopeful-fiction.livejournal.com/40244.html


End file.
